


A Good Chance

by heymacareyna



Category: Shugo Chara!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Denial, F/M, Future Fic, Mutual Pining, Pining, Rima needs help with her foreign language credit, TA Nagihiko, barely friends, nagihiko has been in love with rima for years of course haha, slightly dom!Rima, slightly sub!Nagihiko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heymacareyna/pseuds/heymacareyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rima thinks there's a good chance she might actually lose her scholarship. Nagihiko thinks there's a good chance he might actually lose his mind. College AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Chance

_Mashiro Rima thought there was a good chance she might actually lose her scholarship._

She stared at the paper she’d just gotten in the mail, stamped with the official university seal and everything. GPA in danger of falling below the acceptable limit.

Anger, frustration, embarrassment made heat crawl up her cheeks. It was beyond stupid. She’d been attending Seiyo University for almost three years with no real grade problems, but now with the foreign language requirement she’d been putting off that whole time, she’d pretty well forgotten the scattered English she’d learned in high school, and the current English class had left her in the dust. Her midterm grade had barely been above failing.

She didn’t care about English. She had idiot servant boys who would translate for her if she so much as sighed; she didn’t _need_ to learn it.

But the warning letter in her hand was telling her otherwise.

Unable to find anything funny about the situation, she pitched the paper in the recycle bin and stormed off to the nearest computer lab, where she threw herself into a swivel chair (and nearly fell off, whoops) to find out who the Teacher’s Aides for the class were. Maybe she could “convince” them to work the professor for her, get her grade bumped just a little. Or, if worst came to worst, maybe they could actually catch her up on the material. Ugh.

Rima logged on to the class website and found the little 教授 link. When she clicked, a dropdown box unfolded to tell her the name, phone, and office number of the professor (who was never around) and then, below it, the name and email of the only TA.

Rima read the name.

She read it again.

Her jaw clenched, and her tiny hands fisted in her lap.

“Is this a joke?” she bit out, fuming and unamused.

* * *

_Fujisaki Nagihiko thought there was a good chance he might actually lose his mind._

For eight years— _eight years_ —he had spent most of his waking life half in love with his best friend’s other best friend, which was ridiculous enough on its own, but of course _now_ , now that he’d finally decided it was time to move on, she showed up at his dorm room, long blonde curls a little poofy just the way he liked them, golden eyes big enough to slay, and (to be fair) wearing the cutest tank top–flouncy skirt combination he’d seen in months.

 _Her fashion sense is always so—No! You stop that right now!_ he told himself sternly. _You promised yourself. This is pointless and you’re done with it._

But the two of them were still friends, albeit grudgingly, so he had no intentions of sending her away. Besides, her text had been brief, curt enough to concern him, and now that he knew the situation…

“You want me to tutor you?”

Rima pursed her lips grumpily, and Nagihiko choked a little at the strength of his own perverse imagination. Just a tiny motion, and his stomach clenched against the temptation to bend over and press her petite body against the dorm wall, kissing her until her lips softened and she wrapped around him and he got to find out if her stamina had improved since high school gym—

_Stop!_

He had to take a step back and intentionally gulp some fresh air until his dick calmed down. Trying to mask the movement as a contemplative sigh, he clarified, “Are you thinking right now, or another time?”

“Tonight’s fine,” she said shortly, barely more than a murmur. “And however often we have to, I don’t care.” She tossed her hair, but he saw the worry in her eyes.

He had a paper to work on… but it wasn’t due for another two weeks. It could wait. He swept out one hand in a mock-grand gesture toward the inside of his room. “Well, come on in, let’s get started.”

She all but glided in, her little nose as high as it could go.

He forced himself to leave the door open. Just in case.

* * *

Even though they lived in the same dorm, Rima hadn’t been to Nagihiko’s room since she visited with Amu at the beginning of the year, and she was surprised to see he’d moved things around. The bed was bunked now, and the top mattress looked bare. Had Tadase moved out? She didn’t want to ask out loud—he might think she _cared_ —but she wondered.

And he had more clothes packed into his closet than she did. _Ridiculous_ , she thought, even though she knew full well she was just nitpicking. If he had been shorter and less annoying, she might have borrowed some of his more feminine clothes. _Say what you want,_ she had to admit, _the guy has taste._

He sat himself at one desk, and she perched on top of the other, her legs swinging in the air. Uncertain where to go from here, she flicked some fluff from the knee of her tights.

Thankfully he broke what could have been an incredibly awkward silence. “How far do you feel comfortable?” he asked, pulling his textbook off the shelf. “I don’t want to waste your time by reviewing what you already know.”

She shrugged one shoulder and patted her bangs down over her forehead. “I dunno. I mostly get what we talked about the first month, I guess. After that…”

“Okay,” he said encouragingly, “that’s pretty good. That’s, what, nouns and the ten sentence types?”

She tried to list them off in her head and made it through eight. “Yeah, I mostly remember that.”

When he bobbed his head, his hair shone in the light of his lamps. “So we’ll try to get you through regular verb conjugations tonight. Is that okay?”

She sighed, wishing he were willing to sweet-talk the professor instead.

He took that for the acceptance it was and started from the beginning of the conjugation chapter. But instead of barreling through everything like the prof tended to do, Nagihiko spoke slowly but energetically, explaining the rules and reasoning in more depth and giving lots of examples so Rima actually had a shot at figuring out the patterns. She didn’t realize she’d stopped slouching until she leaned forward to reach for the book.

“English is so stupid,” she said, flipping back to an example he’d just showed her. “How come they do _that?_ What’s the difference?”

He brightened, but instead of taking the book back like she’d expected, he hopped up and walked over to stand next to her. Supporting himself with one hand on the chair she was ignoring, he answered, “Well, remember how the past tense only goes to the first word in the verb phrase? This one is regular past, and this one is past perfect.” He pointed to the words jumped and had jumped in turn. “How many words in past perfect?” he prompted.

“Two,” she said immediately, forgetting to be offended at such a simple question. “So past tense goes to ‘had,’ right?”

“Right. And ‘jumped’ sounds like past tense because…?”

Rima pressed her lips together and stared at the ceiling, scrambling for the right rule. “Because it… is the participle form? And they’re the same in this case?” She looked to him for confirmation, approval.

“Exactly!” And Nagihiko beamed so brightly at her correct answer that she froze in shock, pulse pounding too strongly for a moment. His head had tilted at just the right angle so that his bangs grazed the lids of his eyes, emphasizing the long dark lashes and luminescent brown irises. And despite the grumpy way she usually treated him, only joy and excitement shone from him, unadulterated thrill that something had clicked for her.

It was kind. It was selfless.

It was _not_ what Rima had signed up for.

Realizing she’d been staring, she jerked her gaze back to the textbook and tried to ignore the slight heat prickling her neck and cheeks.

“Guess we better… move on now,” she muttered and turned the page.

* * *

Nagihiko had known Rima was smart. But he was just now realizing _how_ smart. Foreign languages were, she had said, her worst and least favorite subjects (“I can say everything I need to in Japanese!” she had huffed, throwing her hands in the air, which made him laugh), but in the four late hours she worked with him, she memorized and correctly applied almost all the basic conjugation rules and even picked up on some reasoning for the oddball verbs without his prompting.

At eleven o’clock, when she was angrily scrawling out a diagram for a confusing sentence, he found himself just watching her, taking her in, with a warm fond glow like an ache in his chest. And as much as he told himself that he felt only friendship, that he liked her no more and no differently than he liked Amu or Tadase… he knew.

 _But she doesn’t feel the same,_ he reminded himself, rubbing his chest as if that might make the ache dissipate. _So it doesn’t matter._ If he had been able to win her over, it would have happened already. They’d been friends (maybe grudging, on her part, but still friends) for too long for him to lie to himself anymore.

Rima was never going to return Nagihiko’s feelings. All they would _ever_ be was friends, and he had to be satisfied with that.

But if he just helped her along with English, as a TA and as a friend… that didn’t mean anything, right? He’d do the same for any of the other former Guardians.

She raked her thick hair so that it all fell over one shoulder, and the urge to run his hand through it overwhelmed him like a kick to the stomach. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look away.

 _Friends,_ he repeated to himself, firm and unforgiving. _Friends._

Finally she threw her pen down and thrust the paper toward him. He took it and looked over her diagram. “Yes, this is right. See, you’ve got it.”

She huffed. “No, I don’t. I’m guessing. Why is it one of those clause-y things instead of the main verb? They’re right next to each other!”

He leaned a little closer to her—so they could look at the diagram together, of course. A whiff of blueberry tickled his nose, probably an aftertaste of her shampoo, and he studiously ignored the thought that of course she would smell like his favorite fruit—tiny, tart, tantalizing, and totally never enough. “See how you separated them?” he said, not thinking about blueberries at all. “If you think about the implied words, the ones that are missing, they fill in these spaces here. So if you said the whole thing, the verbs wouldn’t be right next to each other.”

“So why don’t they just say that?” she snapped, but her frustration wasn’t aimed at him. “Good God. English is horrible. And lazy.”

He shrugged agreeably. “Most of the native speakers have trouble with it. Don’t feel bad.”

“I don’t,” she replied coolly, shooting him a peeved look.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I just meant _I_ usually feel like I’m barely managing, so I figured you probably felt the same.” He glanced at the clock and shifted away from her. “It’s after eleven. We can be done for tonight if you want.”

“I’m not—” She yawned widely, tiny fingers splaying to cover her open mouth. “—tired yet.”

“At least not much,” he teased, resisting his natural response to yawn as well. “And _I am_ , believe it or not. We can pick this back up tomorrow, assuming you want to keep working with me.” He added this qualification as a safeguard: he would work with her from morning to night, but if he wasn’t helpful or she just couldn’t take that much Nagihiko time, this was her out. She could easily find another tutor if she wanted one, he was sure.

Nagihiko set the paper down and bit down on the inside of his lip to distract himself from the painful silence.

Rima smoothed the flounces of her skirt. Finally she said, “When’s your last class?”

His heart rate jumped. “I finish at three on Tuesdays.”

“Hmm. I finish at two. I’ll meet you here, and then we can work until dinner,” she decided. She didn’t ask if he had other plans, and he didn’t care.

He helped her down off the desk and then showed her out the door. “Sounds good,” he confirmed, hoping his smile didn’t look as totally dopey and smitten as it felt.

Her gaze glanced over him, and he could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile tug at her lips. “See you at three,” she dismissed him, and she started to walk away but then stopped. She stood there, silent, and he was about to ask if she’d forgotten something when, almost inaudibly, she added, “Thanks.”

 _And that makes everything worth it,_ he could have sighed.

“No problem,” he replied.

* * *

Rima sat down outside Nagihiko’s door at 2:30, just in case he got out early, and to pass the time she pulled out a new comic volume she hadn’t had time to read yet. Warm and buzzing with excitement, she flipped open to page one. Within minutes, some of the tension in her shoulders unknotted, and the normally cold, hard set of her gaze softened with delight.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before basketball shoes stepped into her peripheral vision. “Afternoon,” the familiar voice greeted her, and on instinct she looked up to see Nagihiko’s amused-confused half-grin.

And she didn’t want her own smile to widen, but it did.

“I had to wait here forever,” she tried to pass this off, “so I figured I might as well get some reading in.”

“Yeah, ‘reading,’” he teased as he unlocked the door one-handed. It was then that she noticed the two cups of coffee in his other hand. Had he bought one for her? Her cheeks tinged warm, even though it was stupid to be pleased by something so small. Her servants… but Nagihiko wasn’t a servant.

He caught her looking, although he didn’t seem to notice her assumption. As he pushed the door open for her, he laughed, “Yeah, I couldn’t decide what I wanted, so I happened to buy two different drinks. One’s a mocha, one’s a latte. Do you want one?”

He sounded so casual, all _oh I just “happened” to get two._ Rima deflated a little in disappointment, even though she still suspected he was just trying to play cool and pretend he hadn’t really brought one specifically for her.

Well, she could play that game.

“No, of course not,” she sighed as she swept in, nose high. “I’m not big on coffee.” His expression didn’t change, so she let that fester for a second before she added, “But since it’s here…” She held out her hand. “…I’ll take the mocha.”

His smile had turned upward in one corner, almost an open smirk, but he handed her the cup. She took a sip and almost gagged.

“Pleh!” Sticking her tongue out, she hastily switched her coffee for his. This time she tasted more carefully and was rewarded with the sweet chocolate. “Ugh.”

“Was that not the right one?” he asked, too innocently.

Realizing the mixup hadn’t been a mistake, she lowered the cup from her lips just long enough to shoot him an electric glare.

Still smug, he only sipped from his latte.

 _Ugh_ , she thought again, but she wasn’t referring to the taste of coffee this time. He acted like he was a submissive type, all sweet and quiet, up until he wanted a reaction. _What a moron,_ she thought loudly just in case he’d magically developed telepathy.

She didn’t think he had, but he must’ve been able to read her look, because he tilted his head and his eyes creased in a warm smile, mildly less teasing this time.

 _Suckup_ , she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud in case he thought that meant it was working. Instead she moved on to the reason they were even together. “So what are we learning today?”

He flicked his door shut, and with a little pink dusting his cheekbones, he said. “I thought we’d review tenses for a minute and then start on clauses, since that was giving you trouble yesterday.”

“Fine,” she said crisply, hoping the shortness didn’t give away how insecure she felt on that topic.

His smile softened, almost sad, and he reached toward her, but then he froze halfway, his long fingers halted in midair. The pink dusting darkened into a blush, and when he curled his fingers into his palm and drew back, she wondered what thought had gone through his mind.

And she kind of, just a little, wondered what his touch would have felt like.

Whether he had been going to pet her hair, or rest a hand on her shoulder, or tap the tip of her nose. Or maybe he would have brushed along her jawline, warm and gentle, and leaned closer to…

Heat burned a line up Rima’s stomach, and she swallowed a tiny gasp. _What are you thinking?_ she demanded of her mind and body. _It’s just Nagihiko. Calm down._

Shaking herself out of that weird thought, she glanced up and saw he looked a little confused. “Nothing,” she said, though he hadn’t asked. “Are we starting or what?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, the words tilted like a question.

Ignoring this, she climbed back up on the spare desk and crossed her arms. Watching her, he leaned against his own desk again and picked up the textbook. She definitely did not notice the long, lean angles of his finely tuned body.

“Tell me what a clause is,” he suggested.

* * *

 _What is wrong with me?_ The question pounded in the back of Nagihiko’s head, a faint ache that pulsed painfully whenever he almost outed himself as a lovesick fool. It was like his hand had moved on its own—because there was no reason on earth for his brain to think, _Oh, Rima’s having a tough time with her foreign languages requirement, maybe I should HUG HER, that’ll help._ He had pulled back as soon as he realized what he was doing. He couldn’t ruin their friendship by forcing his feelings (which he was trying to suppress anyway!) on her.

But then her expression had gone a little distant, and a little off, and he’d been momentarily terrified that she knew every fantasy he’d ever had around her. But he forced the thought away and tried to focus on the schoolwork. _The only reason she’s here,_ he reminded himself coldly.

She slouched a little as she listed the textbook definition of a clause; the words sounded flat and empty. He suspected she knew _only_ the words.

“Give me an example,” he encouraged her.

She shot him a dirty look with no real heart behind it. In English she struggled out, “Uh… My book is funny.”

He beamed and nodded, and the crinkle in her brow smoothed over a little. “Now, was that independent or dependent?” he prompted, reverting to Japanese.

She stared at him. “I have no idea.”

He reached for the book and started to flip, but she startled him with a huff. He lost his place when he looked back up at her.

“Just come over here,” she ordered, gesturing sharply to the space beside her on the desk. “I hate having to reach all the way over there.”

“You—” he started, but she cut him off with a higher-pitched “Mmm!” and another jerking point, so he sighed, slid off his desk, and walked the two steps to hop up beside her.

It was immediately too much.

Her presence, her body heat, overwhelmed his senses. The blueberry scent, the rustle of her clothes, the light breeze from her swinging legs… His nails dug into his legs. _Don’t think about it, don’t think about it,_ he ordered himself.

She herself seemed completely unaffected by his closeness, or at least she had perfected her Unaffected face, which he knew full well to be true as well. _At least I don’t have to worry about wasting time flirting,_ he told himself, trying to think positively. _She wouldn’t flirt with me if her life depended on it. So we actually get work done._

Holding his breath and staying as still as possible to avoid accidentally brushing her and causing trouble, he held out the book and explained, in simple Japanese, the difference between independent and dependent English clauses. Eventually her eyebrows rose and her lips formed a small “O” of understanding, and he beamed again.

“Good, good,” he praised her.

* * *

Rima had never gotten much joy out of being “good”; she preferred being a bitch or being funny. Or, on occasion, a funny bitch. But the word rolled sweet from Nagihiko’s mouth, and for the first time she felt a tug of desire to earn it again.

She shifted on the desktop, angling herself a little more toward him, a little closer. Her feet, tiny especially compared to his, dangled in the air. Whatever he was wearing (guy smell?) was tickling her stomach, and she inclined her head toward him. To see the textbook page, of course.

“What about when there’s no, what was it, pronoun thing before it?” she pointed out, tracing her thumb under one of the exercise examples. “How am I supposed to know?” If her hand happened to brush his, it was pure chance.

But she could have sworn he actually leaned _away_ from her, and she felt her lips turn down in irritation. _Excuse me?_

“You just have to think about how you’re using it,” he replied, and his voice sounded a little tighter than usual. She stared at him, trying to deduce why he was acting so weird, but he refused to look at her. She was pretty, and fucking hilarious, and smart, even if he couldn’t tell when dealing with English. He ought to have been begging for her right now.

 _Not that I LIKE him or anything,_ she told herself. _There’s just no reason—it’s weird, that’s all._

“I don’t get it,” she emphasized, referring not just to foreign grammar.

If he caught her double meaning, he gave no sign of it. “No, really, you’re doing well so far,” he reassured her. “Grammar’s hard because there are 15 exceptions for every rule. You’ll get it.”

At that she smirked. _You’re damn straight I’m going to get it,_ she agreed silently.

Because when Rima wanted something, no one told her she couldn’t have it.

* * *

When dinnertime came, they both planned to eat at the cafeteria, so they just walked over together. Nagihiko could have sworn Rima stood, walked, leaned a little closer than usual, but it was probably just wishful thinking, and he made sure to maintain a friendly distance regardless. No use stirring up trouble. If he wasn’t imagining it, then that meant she was likely trying to provoke him, and if he pretended not to notice, she might return to her usual methods.

And then he would be able to breathe again.

As it was, he could barely walk straight. He almost ran into Amu outside the cafeteria; the only reason he didn’t was that Rima had gasped a little, and he’d instinctively stopped in his tracks and whirled toward her.

She’d seen Amu, who was right in front of him now. “Hi,” Rima greeted the mutual friend. “Have you eaten yet?”

The pink-haired protagonist looked between them in poorly concealed shock. “Are you two going in now?” Grudging friends they might have been, but that didn’t mean they hung out and got lunch and spent time together when they didn’t absolutely have to.

Rima glanced up at Nagihiko, her golden-brown eyes unreadable. Heat prickled his face, and he hoped the flush was invisible. “Yeah,” she said finally.

“Me too. Can I join you?”

She shrugged elegantly. “Of course.”

He hadn’t been sure whether or not Rima planned to actually eat with him, and now with Amu apparently in the mix, he was confused even further. Were they intending to have some Girl Time? Or did they mean for him to join them?

The two ladies headed in, and he hung back. They didn’t notice. He shook it off and glanced around for anyone he might know—meals were always more enjoyable when eaten with someone else. But he found no one and resigned himself to eating alone tonight.

“Nagihiko.”

He turned toward the entrance to the cafeteria, eyebrows jumping at the voice he hadn’t expected.

Rima, her curls lit from behind by the inside lighting, had stopped for him. If Amu was still with her, if anyone was, Nagihiko was blind to them.

“Are you coming?” she asked, the question lazy but barely a question at all.

Despite all his promises to himself, he felt an open smile split his face, and he jogged to her side. And he could have sworn he saw pleasure soften her expression.

Once they’d claimed a table, they split off to collect food. Nagihiko ran into Rima at the drinks counter, purely by chance. He halfway considered pretending not to see her, but this ingenious plan was destroyed when he stepped on some spilled ice. As if in slow motion, he felt his foot go out from under him. Years of dance training had honed his instinctual catch-self response, so instead of flailing out in every direction, he dropped to lower his center of gravity and shot out one hand to grip the counter like a barre. He ended up sort of curved in on himself and stretching one arm above his head, but he wasn’t on the floor, and that was what counted.

The unusual position sparked an old memory, and half-instinctively he muttered, “Bala-Balance!” Grinning, he stood back up and found himself looking down at a rare radiant Rima smile. The reminder of her favorite childhood gag had cracked her regal façade, and he basked in the glow.

“Bala-Balance!” she echoed, doing the pose regardless of the people who glanced her way. She laughed, positively shining, and did it again. “Bala-Balance!”

He laughed too, enjoying the view of her less inhibited side for as long as he could have it. She caught his eye and grinned at him, lowering her arms. “You never forget your first gag,” she told him. “No matter how much your sense of humor evolves.”

He set his glass and plate down. “So it’s like this?” he asked, striking the pose.

Her eyes widened. “No, you’re doing it wrong. It’s more like…” She struck the pose herself, realized it wasn’t getting through to him, and then stepped right up close. His stomach clenched just before she took his arm and straightened it a little, and tapped his left side to get him to curve inward more.

Every cell she touched burned, and he hoped he wasn’t sweating. He couldn’t push her away for fear of alienating her and of shutting down this open part of her he so rarely saw. When she had finally maneuvered him into the correct position, she gave a satisfied sigh and another unexpected grin. He thought she would let go and flee then, but still she hung on to his wrists, her grip loose but complete.

“I…” He trailed off, but her gaze jumped to his eyes, warm and intense, and he swallowed hard. She stood so close, closer even than when they studied in his room. And the way she was looking at him—he wanted to bridge the distance, to press his lips against hers, to tangle his hands in that beautiful hair, to fit her body into his and hike her up around his waist and pet her curves until she moaned for him to—

Rima’s glossy lips parted, and she sucked in a breath.

It was too much.

Nagihiko pulled away, gentle but firm, tense against temptation. He averted his eyes from her and picked up his dishes again. “Amu’s probably waiting for us,” he said quietly. And he turned and walked back to their table.

* * *

Rima didn’t expect the pang that ached sharp in her chest as she watched him walk away without looking back.  As much as she wanted to convince herself that it was just pride, that she just wanted to prove to herself that she _could_ seduce him… the hurt in her heart suggested there might be more to it.

She brushed it off and picked up her own dishes. _Whatever. Nerd._ Head high, she followed him back (leaving a good distance in between, just to stick it to him). She sat down beside Amu, diagonally across from Nagihiko, and primly tucked into her food without acknowledging him. He was discussing something with Amu that Rima only half listened to until she heard her name pop up: “I think so. Rima?”

Her head jerked up. He was looking at her, waiting for a response. “I wasn’t listening,” she said, keeping her voice chilly. “What did you say?”

If she had been hoping for a reaction, she didn’t get one. “She asked if we were planning to study more after dinner,” he summarized. “I’m willing, if you have time.”

She flicked some invisible dirt from her plate as she pretended to think about it. “Sure, we’d better,” she sighed, as if it were _such_ an inconvenience.

He didn’t even bat an eye. She could have bent her spoon in half. “Better wait till tomorrow, then,” he said to Amu, “but it should be fine.”

What had they been talking about? Did it involve Rima? Suspicious curiosity twisted her insides, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask and admit she was interested. If Nagihiko and Amu wanted to spend time together, who cared? Rima had long ago resigned herself to sharing her best friend. She wasn’t jealous.

“Are you okay with meeting later tomorrow night, then?” he asked. “If we’re” (he gestured between Amu and himself) “going to be able to make that showing, I probably won’t get back until eight or nine.”

Rima gripped her hot chocolate tight. “I don’t care,” she gritted out.

His eyebrows jumped, but he seemed to take that at face value. “Okay. Well, I’ll text you when we get back.”

 _I. Can’t. Wait._ She stabbed a meatball.

After dinner, Amu had homework to do, so she hugged Nagihiko and left, and he and Rima headed back to the dorm. He wasn’t saying much, and she was still kind of peeved even though she couldn’t lay a finger on why, so they walked in only semi-comfortable silence.

“Are you okay?” he asked when the tension became too much.

 _I don’t know anymore._ “I’m fine,” she snapped.

He held up his hands. “All right,” he replied, “no worries. Do you want to postpone the study session? We can do that, it’s fine.”

“No,” she bit out without thinking. Then, in haste to explain her fervency, she added, “There’s a quiz on Thursday. I have to get an A.”

“All right,” he repeated, and he gave up trying to make conversation.

She stomped along, still peeved, but now a new, unusual emotion intertwined with the knot of irritation. They were almost to the door by the time she identified it. Guilt.

_Why should I feel guilty? I didn’t do anything wrong._

But she knew she shouldn’t have snapped at him. It wasn’t fair to take her confused feelings out on him.

He opened the door for her without a word, and she nodded in thanks as she passed under his arm. He followed and shut the door behind them, and when he turned, she sucked in a deep breath.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

He drew back as if expecting a surprise attack. “What?”

“I said sorry,” she repeated a little more loudly, eyes still downcast. “I shouldn’t have snapped.”

“What? That’s it?” He laughed a little in surprise. “Rima, I’m used to it.”

“Well, I still shouldn’t,” she insisted stubbornly. _Because we’re friends,_ she decided not to add aloud.

His gaze softened, and he clasped his hands behind his back. “I forgive you,” he reassured her. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t tell me what to worry about,” she told him, and then she held out her hands.

This visibly threw him.

“Hug.”

“Hug what? Us?”

“No, I was thinking your desk. Yes, us, duh!” She shook her arms slightly to say _hurry up_.

Pink tinged his cheeks, but he bent and hugged her. Immediately she wrapped her arms around him, even going up on tiptoe to press against him. She buried her face in his neck, inhaled, and almost went weak. _I should mess up more often._

* * *

 _She’s doing this on purpose,_ thought Nagihiko, keeping his hands at 100%-G-Rated locations even as he felt her hands graze his hair. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to breathe.

_She’s got to be._

When he felt her exhale against the sensitive back of his ear, he struggled out of her embrace. “Let’s get back to English so we don’t have to stay up late working,” he suggested. No matter how much he would have enjoyed staying up late doing _other_ things with her.

He could have sworn he saw disappointment darken her eyes and pout her lips, but the expression disappeared as soon as he caught it. “Where are we, again?” she asked, and they shuffled back into work mode, a little rudeness (Rima’s) replaced by a little stiffness (Nagihiko’s, in more ways than one). He thought they might have made a big jump in their friendship—she didn’t insult him at all again without a slight tilt of her lips to show she was joking—but he feared that if this was her idea of platonic, the change of him losing his mind had jumped with it, from good to _great._

The next day he jumped into Amu’s car the second she pulled up and all but sighed in relief as she drove away. “You okay?” she laughed. “I didn’t realize tutoring was so stressful.”

“You have no idea,” he muttered.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Ha,” he huffed. “No, but thanks.” He could just imagine the hundreds of ways him saying _I’m so hopelessly in love with your other best friend that I read into every single thing she does_ could possibly go wrong. Better to keep that to himself. It had kept him safe for eight years so far.

Lonely, and half insane, but safe.

Amu pressed a little more, but when he refused to divulge anything more, she let it go.

He trusted her not to say anything. That was his mistake.

* * *

Bent over a killer essay, Rima practically threw herself at her phone when it rang. Desperately she flicked to Answer Call without even looking to see who it was. “Hello?”

“Uh, hi?” Amu’s familiar voice sounded confused. “Are… is something wrong?”

Rima took a deep breath. “No, just homework.” It wasn’t something to apologize for, so she didn’t. “What’s up? Aren’t you out with Nagihiko?” Not that she cared, or had asked for the exact times they would leave or come back.

“Yeah, he’s in the bathroom. I actually had a question,” she rushed on.

“Okay, what?”

“Is everything okay with you two?” Amu blurted, sounding embarrassed. “You were both kind of weird at dinner, and then today he was practically running to get out of the dorm. Are you being mean?”

“I haven’t even seen him yet today,” Rima said, ignoring the comment about last night. She could admit she’d been icy-angry after the non-event of the Bala-Balance, but Nagihiko hadn’t been bothered in the least. She gritted her teeth remembering just how unbothered he’d been.

“Yeah, but when I asked if tutoring was the problem, it sounded like it was.”

“What the _hell?”_ she snapped. “He _said_ that?”

Amu swore. “Not—not exactly. Not those exact words. Sorry.” But like she was sorry to have brought it up, not that she’d made it up.

“What the hell,” Rima repeated, more faintly, feeling that stupid ache in her chest again.

“I just wanted to ask you to be nicer. He doesn’t have to tutor you. You could totally find someone else if you’d rather.”

The problem, Rima was finding, was not that she’d “rather” learn from someone else, but that English wasn’t what she wanted to learn from him. She’d _rather_ be learning other sorts of things, like whether or not his mattress squeaked and how sweaty he could get with intense exercise.

But if he was complaining about tutoring her…

Oh ho ho, the ache morphed from hurt to irritation. Rima got what she wanted, and right now she wanted to screw Nagihiko senseless. He didn’t want to spend time with her? He was a good actor, then; he was so positive, so encouraging—

Her brain slammed her with memory after memory of the times he’d rejected her, pushed her away in the last few days. Any other guy would have jumped her bones had he gotten half as clear an opening.  There had to be some truth to what Amu had inferred.

Rima half-lowered the phone from her ear, her stomach dropping.

_Nagihiko doesn’t like me?_

_At all?_

She’d known he was warm-hearted enough to try to be kind to everyone, but somehow she’d… forgotten that she might be one of the ones for whom he had to force it. Weren’t they _friends_ , at the very least?

“Oh, he’s back,” Amu said suddenly. “Gotta go. Talk to you later. Don’t be mad!” _Click_.

Rima pitched her phone into her bed and crossed her arms over her chest. Mad? She was beyond mad, she was _hurt_ , she was…

Ah. An idea. Not a particularly kind one, but an idea nonetheless. And if Nagihiko was complaining, well, then, she’d give him something to complain about.

Rima opened her closet.

* * *

The afternoon out with Amu didn’t help as much as Nagihiko had hoped it would. He spent half the time with Rima on his mind, mentally reliving conversations or picturing her in outfits on the mannequins. A couple times he turned, wanting to tell her something and hear her sarcastic commentary, only to remember that she wasn’t with them. Some habits died hard.

When Amu dropped him off at the dorm lobby and drove away to find a parking spot, he took the stairs four at a time, because if he had to think about her constantly, he might as well have the benefit of her actual presence. He’d texted her when they left, so she ought to be here soon, maybe even—

 _Oh God._ He took the corner, caught sight of her, and almost ran into the wall.

Rima was leaning lazily against the doorframe, one heel kicked up for support. Her turquoise dress made her curves look impossible and ended in a short white flounce just above… thigh-high stockings. His brain short-circuited on those. Thigh highs. _Thigh highs._ He was pretty sure he’d had dreams like this before, and if he remembered right, it had been supremely easy to hike up her dress and just—

His skinny jeans, once just tight, now were painfully uncomfortable.

He was halfway to stumbling back out the way he’d come, but then she turned and saw him, and he could see those brown eyes from all the way down the hall. He had to rest one hand against the wall just to stay upright.

She gave a little sigh, and the hand holding her book fell to her side. “You’re late,” she sighed, as if nothing had ever disappointed her more.

“R-Rima?” He hated the stutter, waited for the teasing.

But she only shrugged one shoulder to the room. “Let’s start.”

Deciding not to press his luck by talking, he unlocked his door and pushed it open for her. She sashayed in, for lack of a better word, and he stumbled in after.

She leaned against the spare desk, hooking her feet in the back of the chair.

He considered asking her to leave, or change, or reschedule, but that was ridiculous. She could wear whatever she wanted; it didn’t give him the right to mentally undress her. It was inhuman to objectify her just because she happened to be wearing the fashion staple of his fantasies.

To try to lend some normalcy to the situation, he asked, “Why the, um, why are you kind of dressed up?”

She adjusted her headband. “I have plans tonight.” She gave no further explanation.

“Um,” he said cleverly, “okay. Well, then, we’d better start. I’d hate to hold you up.” _Against the wall, on the desk, in the shower…_

“I’m in no hurry.”

 _Nope. Nope. Civil thoughts. Jesus. Grandmas. Dead dogs._ He pulled out the textbook and hurriedly flipped to the new page. “You remember what we’ve gone over so far?” he asked weakly.

She tossed her head in something like a nod. “Clauses, verbs, yeah.”

“You think you’ve got those pretty well?”

She shrugged. “I guess,” she said in labored English.

He nodded encouragingly, and thankfully the transition to Teacher Mode was distracting his dick. “Okay, so today we’re gonna talk about gerunds, which are sort of like verbs but are actually nouns.”

Her mouth bowed in a pout, and he almost sighed in relief. _That_ , at least, was normal.

They struggled through the gerund section together—it was the most confusing one so far, and he just barely got it, so she grew frustrated quickly. She even snapped at him once, and though she immediately apologized, he had kind of liked it. Insults he knew and understood (and he didn’t take them personally anyway).

Since it was slow, painful going, they took a short break after an hour and a half. He pulled out some apples and water bottles from a desk drawer, and they sat on the floor to recover their mental energies. Nagihiko kept his eyes just slightly away from her and was able to hold an intelligent conversation that way.

“How was your trip with Amu?” Rima asked, sounding a few degrees cooler than before.

 _I spent the whole time wishing you were there._ “Uh, it was good. We caught a movie and wandered around the mall a little. What are your plans?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but curiosity got the better of him. Curiosity and the slightest twist of potential jealousy.

Oddly, she kicked at the floor a little. “I’m not sure,” she whispered. “I guess I’ll see.”

“Do you—are you meeting someone somewhere?”

“Oh, haha… no, it’s… mmm.” She stopped and took a bite out of her apple. Once she’d finished chewing, she changed topics. “Hey, did you see those intramural posters that somebody put up all over campus? You thinking about joining?”

“I—I was, actually.” The stammer came from surprise rather than desire. Had she seen that and thought of him, thought he might be interested? “Thanks. Yeah, I might do basketball, and maybe ultimate frisbee, if I can manage both.”

This made her brow furrow for some reason. “But you won’t—will you still have time for—?” She cut herself off, flushing a little and looking away.

It took him a second, but then he realized. “Of course I’ll still have time for you.”

“Not like I like you or anything,” she said, forced out so lamely that even he knew it was pure falsehood. “I just can’t fail English. I can’t lose my scholarship.”

That, though… that part hurt as truth. He remembered how tough a home life she’d dealt with as a child and wondered if the pressure was on even higher as an adult. Without thinking, he held out his arms. “Do you want a hug?”

“No, I want an A and a thousand million yen,” she joked, but her eyes were a little red, and she crawled over to curl up in his arms. Buzzing with heat at her closeness, he hugged her tightly and hoped to convey, if not love, then at least the high value he placed on her. _No one should have to fight for scraps of affection._

Still buried in his embrace, she mumbled something he didn’t quite catch.

“Sorry, what?” he asked gently.

She turned her head just enough that her words didn’t go straight into his shirt. “We’re friends, right?”

“Of course,” he emphasized, confused that she had to ask.

“I’m not a… an inconvenience, or a pain or anything?”

“What?” he repeated, this time in shock. “What on earth gave you _that_ impression?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Amu said,” she admitted finally, “you said something about not liking tutoring me.”

Nagihiko almost laughed. _I’m going to kill Amu and find a new best friend_ , he decided, clenching his jaw. He could understand her desire to mediate, but in this _particular_ arena… “She misunderstood,” he managed. “I didn’t say that.”

Rima seemed unconvinced. “I can find another tutor,” she offered, though halfheartedly. “I wouldn’t want to—”

“No,” he insisted with an embarrassing amount of force. “It’s really fine. I like it. I like tutoring you.”

This quieted her. He worried he had offended her or said too much, until she whispered five words he would never have even dared hope for: “But do you like _me?”_

* * *

Rima shouldn’t have said anything, but she needed to know, and the words burst from her at such a clear opening. _Oh, I screwed up,_ she moaned to herself as she watched the blood drain from Nagihiko’s face. _I shouldn’t have said anything, I should have just let it be—_

“I mean, we’re friends,” he stammered, and her gut plummeted.

 _We made it this far, and I just had to ruin it._ She shook her head again. “No, that wasn’t what… never mind.”

But something sparked in his eyes, and he shifted underneath her. “Well,” he started, “what _did_ you mean, then?”

Something in the question gave her hope, just a little, just enough. When she met his gaze… he swallowed hard. Rima decided she was done dancing around the damn bush. Time to try for those evening plans of hers.

“I mean you have five seconds to kiss me right now,” she said, almost ordered but not quite. “Screw English.”

His jaw dropping a fraction of an inch, he just looked at her in amazement.

“One,” she said.

“Are you—?”

“Two.”

“Is this a j—?”

“Three.”

“I—”

“Four. Fi—”

And, in desperation it seemed, Nagihiko pulled her face down to his, lips urgent against hers. She took her one requisite breath and then matched his rhythm, burrowing her hands into his hair. Tangling his own hands in her long curls, he adjusted his position just enough that her knees fell on either side of his waist. He seemed to want her straddling him, and she had to admit it gave her a much more advantageous position. She pressed herself up against him just when he broke away to mouth his way along her jaw, down her neck, across her shoulder, and she gave a pleased, needy moan at the back of her throat that made his dick jump under her.

“Nag—Nagi—” she tried, wriggling under his attentions, but cut off in another gasp when he bit down on the curve of her neck. _That’s going to leave a mark,_ she thought, and then: _I hope it does._

Years ago she would have been appalled at the thought. Now she liked the idea of having a mark to pretend to hide. She only hoped he wasn’t going to stop there.

His stupidly feminine hands roamed down her waist and then the backs of her thighs. She felt fingers on the insides of her knees, then upward, then— “Oh, fuck, Rima,” he moaned, voice deep and rasping. “It had to be fucking thigh highs.”

The hard cursing surprised her, pleased her, almost as much as the admission of weakness. She rubbed, just a little, over the growing tent in his jeans. “You like them, then?”

He made a noise that might have been yes or no, and he slipped his hand under her skirt. She assumed he’d start slow, go for her breasts, but—

 _“Oh!”_ she gasped, jumping at the pressure on her already sensitive clit. Heat rushed downward, and he rubbed harder, making her squirm with pleasure. “Oh my g—oh, that’s— _fuck!”_

“Okay?” he asked in little more than a moan, and she nodded quickly, desperately. _Please._

He slid one strap of both dress and bra off her shoulder and began to tongue the now-bare skin with a catlike laziness that belied the faster rhythm of his fingers. That second hand found its way up to knead her right breast.

But he hadn’t answered the question. Despite the need fuzzing up her mind, Rima gathered herself enough to stop his hand. After all, if it was her own outfit planning that had managed to get his hands and mouth on her like she’d been aching for, she deserved to know. For future reference. “I said,” she repeated more loudly, “do you like my stockings?”

He looked up, eyes dark with desire, and he knew what she wanted. “Yes ma’am,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “I like them a lot, ma’am.”

A ripple of pleasure jerked at her hips. “Hmm. Good.” She kissed him on the mouth, bit him on the neck, and finally released his hand to begin again. His thumb traced a strong, hot line up her core, and she jerked again with a muffled moan. Her lower abdomen was clenching up tight as a spring. “Holy sh—keep going,” she ordered, voice tight, and it might have been his rasped “yes ma’am” and the continued fast pressure together that sent her over the edge, the spring uncoiling at lightning speed, and she spasmed on top of him, pressing her lips together to quiet herself. The white glow and rush of endorphins tided her over until she’d washed back to mostly coherent thoughts, panting and pleased.

He stroked her back down, and once she was somewhat put back together, she realized that he still had a big problem to solve. She kissed him and lifted up on her knees to give him just enough space to wriggle out of those damn pants. Off came the jeans, and the boxers too. But when he made to move like he wanted to get on top, she pushed him back to the floor. Not hard, but firm.

“If you want something,” she ordered between heavy breaths, “you can ask for it.”

“May I fuck you, please, Rima-sama?” he groaned, half laughed.

She laughed herself, but she shook her head. “No.” She raised her eyebrows.

He managed to put the prompt together somehow. “Will you,” he asked, “fuck me, please, Rima-sama?”

Pleased, she ground down against him, and he let out a cry. “Why, yes, I will,” she agreed.

And she did. Twice. Then a third time the next morning.

* * *

 _Mashiro Rima thought there was a good chance she might actually keep her scholarship._ English was suddenly much more interesting a subject, and she was spending most of her free time with her tutor.

 _Fujisaki Nagihiko thought there was a good chance he had actually lost his mind._ But with things changing the way they were—going in a direction that let him tangle with his favorite queen and wake up to laugh at her horribly adorable rumpled bedhead—he decided he was happy with it that way.


End file.
